Editorial
The Gist
- EX and CX integration. Aligning employee experience and customer journey mapping enhances satisfaction and reduces disappointments.
- Aligning EX and CX. Consistent and authentic alignment of employee and customer experiences is crucial for a positive brand image.
- Employee training focus. Effective employee training directly impacts customer satisfaction and perception of the brand.
There’s a new cruise line offering to us that caters to adults only, boasting they take you to more unique ports than many other lines. No kids and better places? Sign us up. So, we did… and we (somewhat) wished we didn’t.
Let's take a look at this story and how it ties into the importance of EX and CX.
It all started with a “need” to go to the south of France, Monaco, Mallorca and Ibiza with a group of strangers around our age. We chose our sail date, our room, downloaded the app like we were asked, and followed the cruise line on Instagram (which we stalked religiously as though we were about to join some elite club).
Easy! The sail date arrived, and the once well-orchestrated customer journey began to falter, sinking completely by the end of our cruise.
So, how (and when) did this cruise line's journey and marketing fail that hard the minute actual people were involved. Below are some “lessons learned” from our experience with this cruise line that can be useful in developing and maintaining our customer journeys and marketing strategies.
EX and CX Lesson 1: An Automated Journey + Great Sales Marketing = 'Smooth Sailing'
This cruise line is GREAT at automated customer journeys and sales marketing. Its well-timed emails, splashy graphics, great social media presence and cheeky descriptions would bring nearly anyone on board with purchasing their services. After all, it’s the first hook for the customer that causes them to “bite,” and they've always done that well.
For us, when we were nearing our sail date, well-timed emails appeared to remind us to complete tasks on our app, sent countdown clocks to excite us, offered us well-priced add-ons, enticed us with unique onboard dining options that virtually no other cruise line really offered and gave us so many different excursion options that seemed like dream day trips. To us, it was a dream to finally have a cruise line that “spoke our language,” and we couldn’t wait to embark on this journey with them.
Tip:
While not every organization can be as bold and “cheeky” as this particular cruise line, new ways of catching a prospect’s eye tend to work better over the tried-and-true. With sensory and informational overload constantly at a peak, our minds actively look for new ways to be stimulated.
Related Article: 3 Ways to Improve EX and CX at the Same Time
EX and CX Lesson 2: You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression – How Cruise Line Sprung a 'Minor Leak'
The day arrived to embark on the cruise. We were in Barcelona to begin our journey, and we had paid a bit extra to get on the ship first. As our taxi arrived at the port, we saw a long line of hundreds of people — many looking unhappy. We figured that that was probably the regular line, so we handed our bags to the porter, did the initial check-in, and were then told to go to the back of THAT line. There was no explanation and no apologies. We could tell the staff knew about as much as we did.
About an hour and a half later, we learned that there had been a delay letting people board the ship — and that what we paid for was merely a shorter check-in line once inside. Sadly, many of us who paid for this “shorter” line were upset at how this was done, with many asking the check-in staff, “What did we pay for?”
Now, as a customer experience professional (and as someone who adores well-orchestrated logistics), that didn’t sit right with me (my husband was just happy to be there, however). But it caused me, as well as many others, to become skeptical of what the rest of the cruise journey would be like, simply because our first real interaction with the trip wasn’t done well.
Tip:
Make sure the initial journey a customer goes through is impactful, memorable and easy-to-follow. Train your staff on it repeatedly if necessary. It’s imperative that you set the expectation for the customer before they set it for you.
Related Article: The Art of Balancing Employee Experience and Customer Experience
EX and CX Lesson 3: The Connection Between EX and CX Is Crucial — How Cruise Line’s Distress Signal Was Set Off
With my “CX glasses” now firmly on for the rest of the trip, I saw and experienced staff interactions that for myself, as well as many other passengers, were way below our set expectations. This was due to low pay in their contracts, tips already being included in the fare and the overall treatment/training of the staff.
Know Your Customer, Hire Accordingly
We guessed that the average age of the staff was around 25, with management hovering around 30, with the average age of the cruiser being of the “empty nester” years. While we later learned the reason for this (see the Lesson 4 on Marketing), us cruisers often discussed (with each other) how there wasn’t a single crew member around our age who could relate to us and our expectations, and that potentially, this cruise line was meant for a much younger demographic. Bottom line: All businesses must hire staff because they have a deep passion for customer service — something that especially should be required for customer-facing jobs.
Tip:
Building your customer profile is key to good hires. When you understand your customer, you understand the talent that needs to be hired into roles.
Your Employee Culture Is Only as Good as the Training/Pay They Receive
One evening, we decided to attend a music trivia game. The cruise director was in charge of hosting it. All of 26 years old (we know because he told us), he started with standup “comedy” that can only be described as a tongue-in-cheek way of “airing his grievances” about working for the cruise line (cue the screeching record scratch).
What? Everyone looked at each other to confirm others heard the same. Sadly, in this post-COVID era, this is an all-too-common issue with many organizations, and it comes down to the budget for the right talent and the employee training they receive.
Tip:
How your employees represent your organization, during and after their tenure, is how your organization will always be perceived. At the very least, training and re-training is crucial to the success of that perception.
Related Article: Is It Time to Make CX and EX 'One Experience'?
Empower Your Employees
We had just come back from a rather brutal excursion through the south of France and Monaco. This isn’t sarcasm. Those who paid for a “Create Your Own French Itinerary,” assumed it would be just that — the ability to wander, at leisure, in both places. Instead, it was a long bus ride, 30 minutes, another bus ride, 60 minutes, and so forth. By the time we got back to the ship, we agreed that we would cancel the rest of the excursions and actually create our own itineraries from there on out.
I headed down to the service desk to explain the situation and get the rest canceled. We stood with the woman for nearly 45 minutes before she explained that a manager would have to cancel on her behalf and that the manager would text me on the app. She went on to say that service reps do not have the authority to do this.
Thankfully, it was a swift cancellation after that, but it left me wondering just how many people have been through unsuccessful and time-consuming interactions with these reps and what kind of impression that left on them. Why wouldn’t these employees be empowered to make these kinds of decisions? The answer: If training is done properly, answers arrive much quicker. In this case, had the rep known the limitations of her role, she’d have been able to provide a faster solution by having us contact the manager directly to get our request resolved.
Tip:
A customer support journey is the second most important journey you can create and implement. Time is valuable.
Related Article: EX and CX Come Down to the Same Thing: Put the Person First
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EX and CX Lesson 4: The Brand Is Only as Consistent as Its Marketing
On the second to the last night of the cruise, we were feeling uncertain about our experience. That night was where guests dance the night away until nearly 3 a.m. (we danced for a brief 20 minutes at 11 p.m. and went to bed). Earlier, we had headed to our reservation at a rather lively Japanese Steakhouse and were seated with four women from the UK. Our conversation quickly turned to shared experiences and cruise marketing. The women told us that in the UK, our cruise line marketed the cruise as an 18-and-older cruise ship with unlimited partying and drinking — something that made them hesitant to book. We shared that in our marketing, the emphasis was on being kid-free, hence attracting all the American empty-nesters on board who seemed confused over how to conduct themselves. This cruise line's marketing needs a lifeboat.
Additionally, we discussed the excursions. We agreed that while the marketing descriptions were impressively written, the actual experiences fell far short of expectations. This significant gap between expectation and reality probably contributed to why many seemed reluctant to book another cruise with this particular cruise line.
Tip:
Understanding your customer profile is key to effective marketing across all potential customer countries, particularly in scenarios where customers will interact. A message should never deviate as far from reality as the ones we experienced.
Related Article: Building Trust: CX, EX, AI and the Human Experience
What This Cruise Taught Us About the Intersection of EX, CX and Marketing
It’s fairly simple — if your employees aren’t happy, your customers will feel it. If your employees aren’t trained properly, your customers will feel it. If you do not have your EX, CX and marketing journeys mapped, integrated and implemented correctly, then your customers will be standing in long lines with bad reviews on their minds.
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